


we hid in catacombs

by oflights



Series: wake [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Break Up, F/M, I am a terrible person who hates joy, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 19:55:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/613656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oflights/pseuds/oflights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sidney and Geno get together, break up, have sex, date other people, and get really into Pittsburgh sports. Just not necessarily in that order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. we hid in catacombs

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is what happens when Pandora pummels me with songs by The Antlers, giving me a lot of feelings that are just not fair. Title is from [Wake](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fpI2PPRAM4), which I guess is a warning in and of itself.
> 
> Thanks, as always, to the people I threw bits of this at over chat (Melanie, HK, Christina, I'm not sorry). Thank you to Salv for being the most wonderful lil beta a girl could ask for. <333
> 
> I FINALLY feel ready for a lengthy break from this pairing, so, yay? And read the epilogue before you come to murder me! :)

Geno is sure that he’s misunderstanding, at first.

“Sorry?” he says, careful. Sidney jerks like he’s been stung anyway, still twitchy, fingers flexing over his bent knees and his palms digging into the denim of his jeans. 

Geno had thought about touching him, cupping his hands over Sidney’s, stroking the tips of his fingers over the wind-burned skin of the back of Sidney’s hands, but he hadn’t. There are times when Sidney wants to be touched, and there are times when he doesn’t. Geno can understand that, at least.

“No,” Sidney says. Geno’s missing something, somehow, even though he never stops paying attention to Sidney. “You—don’t be sorry. You shouldn’t be sorry.”

That’s not what Geno meant by _sorry_ , and now Sidney’s missing something, too. 

“I mean—” Geno says, and he is trying not to sound frustrated. He is trying not to be frustrated. “I mean I don’t understand.”

“Oh,” Sidney says flatly. For a second he looks like he’d rather cut out his own tongue than say anything else, face drawn and pained, so much so that now Geno’s twitching, too, wanting to touch again. He doesn’t. Instead, he waits, too unsure to be scared yet, and patient to a point.

“I don’t know—” Sidney starts, now wringing his hands together in his lap. “I don’t know how else to say it.”

“Say again,” Geno suggests, and Sidney pulls a face like that’s the worst idea he’s ever heard. For a second, Geno thinks about laughing it off—okay, don’t say anything else, leave it alone until they can find a Sid-to-Geno dictionary. 

In the meantime, there’s an episode of Hoarders that Sidney can glue himself to, that Geno can mercilessly mock. Sidney’s favorite blanket is on the back of the sofa, folded and soft and fresh from the wash, and they can pull it down and drape it over them, Sidney hogging the whole thing and Geno long-sufferingly dealing with his corner. “Get your own blanket,” Sidney will say, like this isn’t Geno’s house, but he’ll move closer and he’ll be so warm against Geno’s side that Geno won’t need the blanket.

“I don’t think we should see each other anymore,” Sidney says, and Geno is snapped away from the reality that makes sense. 

 

Oksana really loves the Greek salads at this little South Side diner they’d discovered once after a night out with Max and Tanger. Geno usually tries to order her something more substantial than _salad_ , blithely ignoring her when she barks at him that she can order for herself until she resorts to threats with cutlery, but Oksana likes the salads in a genuine way. They make her happy the way small pancakes make him happy, though maybe not for the same reason.

“Why do you always take me to this dump?” Oksana asks him between pleased bites. Geno rolls his eyes and sips at his coffee. He couldn’t order the small pancakes today; every time he goes into the diner, he tells himself he’ll be able to, but today his throat just got the smallest ache when he’d seen them on the menu, and he’d had to rush out a chicken club order to save face.

Next time, Geno knows, he’ll order the small pancakes. He’s probably ready. 

“You love it,” Geno says patiently, and Oksana’s lip curls as she looks around. It’s late for lunch, early for dinner, especially around here, and their place is pretty empty. It fills up at night, and then later, when people are coming out of the clubs and want to split French fries. Geno likes it best now, and he likes Oksana best when they’re here at this time, because she’s not as good at feigning disdain when it’s just them.

“If this is a bid for another go at things, you’re not doing well,” Oksana says, nothing even remotely gentle in her tone. She hasn’t let him down easy in years, not since maybe the second breakup. Geno appreciates that. He thinks he’s getting too old to be let down easy all the time.

“I wasn’t thinking of that at all.”

“Of course not,” Oksana scoffs. “You take me out to lunch all the time, just for no reason.”

“You’re in Pittsburgh,” Geno points out, watching her spear a large purple olive on her fork. “You’re just here for your health?”

“Good salads,” Oksana says, and she smiles. Geno smiles back helplessly, reaching across the table for her hand without really thinking about it. There’s not much he has to think about with Oksana; usually it’s what she’s thinking about that can get difficult for him.

“It’s been almost six weeks,” Geno says, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand. “I’m having the season of my career. Sid’s back and it’s not bad with him at all. He would never let it be bad between us. The team doesn’t even know, I don’t think.”

“Idiot.” 

“I’m fine,” Geno says. He doesn’t think about the small pancakes.

“You’re an idiot,” Oksana tells him, pointing her fork at him. “Your mother—”

“My mother knows _nothing_ , just that it ended. My mother is fine.”

“You are really an idiot.” It’s stopped sounding like a term of endearment and started sounding like a fact. Geno scowls a little, just on principle, even if he can only argue so much. “Your mother is worried beyond belief. Everyone is worried. I’m not worried because I know you’re a big boy, you’re a good man and you will be fine, but you have to let people worry about you, Zhenya.” 

Geno doesn’t like to let people worry about him, because he doesn’t like to think that there’s a reason for them to worry. He really is fine. Six weeks is more than enough time to get over a breakup, and he thinks there’s proof of that in how no one but the people he stupidly told has noticed anything happened. 

The team doesn’t know. The team never knew, not really—guys like Flower and Max knew how Sidney felt way back when, and Jordy used to tease him about it sometimes with terrible innuendos until Geno told him to stop. That was before anything, though, when it was just Sidney, when Geno never thought like that. 

People back home know, and he is glad for the ocean between them because it makes it easier. Geno thinks the only thing that could make this worse would be if too many people had always known, if it wasn’t just Sid and Geno, and if they wouldn’t stop reminding him of it. 

Even in their native tongue, Geno doesn’t have the words to explain that to Oksana. He doesn’t know what else to say to her except, “I am _fine_.” He finishes his coffee and then asks her if she’s coming home with him.

Oksana waves at him dismissively; her plate is cleared and her nails are long and vivid red where they curl over the tabletop, close to his hand but no longer touching it. 

“You think I’m going to put out after _this_?” 

“You’re so rude,” Geno says. “Uncivilized. I don’t know why I ever wanted to marry you.”

Her laugh is haughty and deep and one of his favorite sounds in the world. “You would marry me tomorrow and you know it.”

“Yes,” he says, ignoring the voice in his head that sounds like his mother, always, screaming at him. “Yes, let’s get married, then.”

“Too bad I won’t have you.” 

“You’re not the only one,” Geno says, and he watches softness flicker over her face, a terrible pity he wants to recoil from. “I’m fine, see? I can already joke about it.”

“You’re an idiot,” Oksana says, and she makes him settle their bill and walk her out to her car. There, she presses him up against the side of the SUV that’s much too big for her and holds on to his chin with her fingers. Her heels make it easy for her to lean up and kiss him with what feels like all her strength, her grip hard enough to bruise, Geno’s lips stinging with the force of hers. 

When Oksana pulls back, Geno drops his forehead against hers and whispers, “Marry me.” For a moment, he is entirely serious.

She looks serious, too, when she hits his cheek—not hard enough to be a slap, too hard for a pat. “I’m going home,” Oksana says, just as serious. “Call your mother, she thinks this is my fault, and we both know it’s not.”

“It is your fault,” Geno says. He means it, a little bit. In his head, there’s a lot of blame to go around. Oksana didn’t want to leave Russia for eight months out of the year, and so they had never married. Geno had assumed he could wait until he retired, or she could wait, and then he had to go and fall in love with Sidney Crosby like some kind of moron. “You broke my heart first.”

Oksana’s eyes flash, icy and hauntingly beautiful. “You know why I did that.”

“And now? Why are you doing it now?” 

“Because you don’t love me anymore,” Oksana tells him, and his chest aches with the thought of that, the truth of it. 

“I wish—” Geno says, but Oksana just shakes her head and backs away, out of his space completely. She hip-checks him into moving out of her way and pops open the door of her car.

“You’ll be fine,” Oksana says as she climbs into her car. Geno moves back to watch her go and knows that he wishes he could believe her.

Geno drives home thinking about how he’s going to have to call his mother, there’s no getting around that, really. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say to her; the pathetic truth would have her on a plane in the morning, and that would be terrible. A lie would make her unhappy and angry, and he is very tired of making people unhappy.

“He’s not even hot,” Sergei likes to say. “Please, ruin your life over someone worthy of it.”

And there is no way Geno can ever keep from getting defensive of Sidney in those conversations, which just makes them both unhappy—Geno, who knows too well how worthy Sidney is, and Sergei, who will never fully understand.

He has the same problem with his mother, who likes Sidney just as much as Sergei does, but still doesn’t understand why Geno ever wanted him. It’s not something that Geno can explain, really, because he doesn’t fully understand it himself. It feels like one day, Sidney had a crush on him, and Geno thought that was a little weird, not as funny as Max and Flower and Jordy thought it was. The next day, Geno couldn’t get the idea of it out of his head, and that was that, really.

Now it’s over, and that’s that, and Geno has no idea what to say to his mother, because he still feels like he doesn’t understand, still missing something.

He feels this with more certainty when he pulls into his driveway behind Sidney’s car, which hasn’t been parked here for six weeks. 

Sidney is in Geno’s kitchen, sitting at the table and staring into a mug of what looks like very milky tea. He doesn’t like tea, but Geno stopped buying coffee about three weeks ago, when his housekeeper had thrown out the last of Sidney’s fancy Colombian blend. Sidney looks up when Geno walks in, and he twitches like he wants to stand up, but Jeffrey is asleep and sprawled over his feet under the table, legs kicking in a dream. 

“Hi,” Sidney says. He’s flushing a little, and it can’t be from the tea because it’s clearly gone cold—Sidney had probably not even sipped it, just made it in Geno’s kitchen, like that’s still totally okay.

“You walk Jeffrey?” Geno says. It’s not the first thing he wants to say, not the least of what he wants to say, but it’s what comes out. Sidney nods, biting his lip.

“Yeah. He knocked himself out.”

“Lazy,” Geno huffs, an instinct, and Sidney cracks a tiny smile, also probably an instinct. Geno watches his knee bob slightly, just a small jerk, but it stills again for Jeffrey, and Geno has to fist his hands at his sides and think about breathing.

Sidney doesn’t say anything, and that’s what really makes Geno so angry. Geno isn’t the one who owes Sidney anything here; he is the one that’s owed. As much as he’ll continue to defend Sidney, and as much as he still doesn’t understand, Geno gets that, at least. In simplest terms, Geno was dumped, and as soon as that happened, this became Sidney’s show. Geno doesn’t know how to do anything but watch and hurt. 

“What are you doing, Sid?” Geno asks finally, and Sidney squares his shoulders. There’s already a frown on his face when he looks back up, but it deepens when his eyes settle on Geno. He doesn’t make eye contact, which Geno could have predicted, but he does stare pretty heavily at Geno, until Geno’s sighing and running his fingers through his hair. He’s angry that he feels self-conscious, and angry that he’s not angrier that Sidney’s even here. “You can’t.”

“Sorry,” Sidney says absentmindedly, and he pushes his chair back very slowly. Gently, he pulls his feet out from underneath Jeffrey, and Geno feels absurd watching Sidney wiggle his toes in his socks before he gets up and strides over to Geno with a purpose he can’t fathom. 

“Can’t just come,” Geno says. He’s trying to infuse his voice with all of his anger, leaving out the confusion and uncertainty that only grows as Sidney moves to stand in front of him, still staring. “Different now, you have to call like rest of team, and—and you should give key back.”

“Okay,” Sidney says. His arms are folded over his chest, frown deep and unhappy, and Geno wants it to go away out of achy habit. “Nealer said that Oksana’s here.”

Maybe if Geno punched him, the frown would go away. For a second, he seriously considers it. Instead, he folds his arms over his chest, too, and nods, defiant. He tries to get Sidney to meet his eyes but it’s no use, really; Sidney is staring at his mouth. 

“She’s here,” Geno says. “We have lunch. Want key back now.”

“Fine,” Sidney says, but when he reaches out there’s no key in his hand. Instead, he presses his thumb to the corner of Geno’s mouth, and Geno is so shocked he forgets to jump back, to slap Sidney’s hand down. Sidney’s thumb comes away stained with pale pink, and his lips press tightly together until he speaks again. “You had lunch?”

Anger, poisonous and burning, surges through him, and Geno has to take a long breath. “Yes. Sid—”

He only has an inkling of what he was going to say after that, and whatever it was slips from his mind the second Sidney’s lips touch his. Sidney throws himself into the kiss, upward and forceful. He kisses with a consuming, aggressive push that sends Geno reeling, his mind blank and his arms twisting out from between their bodies to clutch at Sidney on instinct.

Geno’s so angry. He’s angry in a way he’s never been with Sidney before, touching him without the caution he’s always known was important for them. He’s also stupidly aroused, just from Sidney pressed up against him, his skin warm beneath his t-shirt and his heart kicking a fast, steady beat against Geno’s chest. 

When he kisses back, it’s biting and frustrated, and it yanks low noises from the back of Sidney’s throat. Sidney bites back, just for a moment, before trying to pull away, and Geno keeps him close for another moment before relenting, swallowing down his own noises with the angry lump in his throat.

“Lunch?” Sidney asks, voice thick like his throat needs to be cleared. Geno stares at him, wishing he could register _something_ on Sidney’s face besides the high, typical flush, cheeks mottled pink and lips red and puffed.

“ _Yes_ ,” Geno says, and it comes out in an angry hiss. Sidney doesn’t flinch, just presses his lips together again, paler where they meet. “Yes. We have lunch. Talk about future.” Something flickers in Sidney’s eyes, just a flash too quick to identify, but Geno still feels viciously triumphant. “We talk about—about getting marry.”

“Married,” Sidney says. It’s quick and dismissive and makes Geno’s stomach burn with anger. But then Sidney’s eyes are more than flickering; they’re wide, and maybe hurt, his face gone pale enough to make unwanted tendrils of guilt start to curl around Geno’s heart.

“Sid—”

“You’re getting _married_ ,” Sidney spits out in a snarl. There’s no time to correct him, though, because Geno’s being kissed again, harder now, pushed back against the wall and Sidney’s hands fisted in his shirt.

The lies sits heavy in his chest, heavier than the arousal that spikes through him as Sidney shoves them toward the stairs. It’s there when Geno’s too turned on to stay angry, when they’re in Geno’s bedroom and Sidney isn’t taking his clothes off fast enough and Geno isn’t thinking about being careful with him, or with his own heart. 

He’s thinking about what he wants, and how this is still Sidney’s show, but maybe he’s sick of just watching and hurting.

 

It doesn’t take that long for Geno to catch on, really. He’s not as clueless as his grasp of the English language makes him seem, and Sidney isn’t nearly as subtle as he probably thinks he is. Neither are the guys, giggling and snorting their way through practices, taping MRS. MALKIN over Sidney’s stall or slipping notes into Geno’s: _do you like me? check yes or no. love, Sidney._

 __The whole thing just makes Geno feel like an asshole, even though he’s not doing much of anything. Sergei, when he’s not laughing or pitying him deeply, tells him he’s doing the right thing. “Ignore it and it’ll go away,” is his best advice. “Sidney’s just a kid. He’ll get over it. His real true love is hockey, anyway.”

Ignoring it is easier said than done when they’re out at a team dinner and Geno asks Sidney to pass the bread basket and Sidney knocks over the entire pitcher of Sprite in his haste to get it to him.

“ _Sorry_ ,” Sidney says, looking so horrified with himself you’d think he missed the empty net or something. It probably doesn’t help that their whole table can’t stop laughing, not even bothering to hide it. It makes Geno feel like he’s not only an asshole, but on a team with a bunch of assholes, and he can’t help but think that Sidney deserves better.

“Is okay, Sid,” Geno tells him, as kindly as he can. It doesn’t do much, though—Sidney is beet red and looks ridiculously unhappy, and he stays that way throughout the dinner, even after Flower stops laughing long enough to pick up on it and curses everyone out in French and English until they leave him alone.

So later, heading back up to their rooms to get out of their post-game suits and pack for their trip home tomorrow, Geno falls into step with Sidney and bumps him with his shoulder. It’s light but catches Sidney off guard, making him stagger slightly and widen his eyes at Geno, hands shoved immediately into his pockets like Geno’s out to steal his watch. He’s not so much red now as he is lightly pink, a constant flush Geno recognizes as usually only happening in his presence. It’s there on the ice, too, but from something else, something bigger than Geno, as Sergei correctly pointed out before. Geno likes that flush, likes what hockey does to Sidney.

He doesn’t like what _he_ does to Sidney, though. “Is okay, Sid, _really_ ,” Geno says, grabbing at Sidney’s wrist and shaking it a little. Pulled out of their pocket hiding space, Sidney’s fingers flex in the air as if they don’t know what to do without a hockey stick in them.

Geno watches Sidney swallow hard, watches him watch Geno from the side of his vision, like he doesn’t quite trust that he’s not being made fun of. Geno shakes him again, loose and silly, fitting the biggest, most reassuring grin that he can on his face, until Sidney’s smiling just a little bit back.

“Okay,” Sidney says, letting out a deep breath. Geno slaps him on the back and Sidney jolts and laughs, his big, honking laugh, and when he looks at Geno fully, his face is so open and happy that Geno has to fight not to look away.

It’s hard, honestly, being the source of so much happiness for someone else, the focus of so much of Sidney’s attention. He doesn’t really understand it. Sidney dates so sparingly, so ridiculously picky, and Geno still can’t figure why _he_ was picked. If it’s hockey, then Geno thinks there are better candidates on the Penguins, past or present—Colby, for one, who’s taken to glaring at Geno whenever they play Atlanta like he’s just _waiting_ for him to crush Sidney’s heart. 

That’s not going to happen; Geno is sure of it. He has to believe that Sergei is right, that Sidney will get over it before it gets worse or—and Geno can’t really imagine this, but if it were anyone else it would be a distinct possibility—it starts affecting Sidney on the ice. That’s not going to happen either, though. Geno is sure of it.

He introduces Sidney to Oksana at Tanger’s New Year’s Eve party. He’s careful, tries to be quick and gentle about it with the few words he has that are even applicable in this situation, but Sidney kind of ruins that. He shakes Oksana’s hand and says, “Um, nice to meet you, ma’am,” and then colors rapidly when Oksana bursts out laughing.

Geno doesn’t laugh. He just really wishes the floor would open up and suck them all into separate black holes. 

“You’re being mean,” Geno tells Oksana. “Stop it, he doesn’t deserve this.”

“He’s adorable,” Oksana says, and she pats Sidney’s cheek and passes him one of Max’s famous Jell-O shots. Sidney looks at it like he’s certain that it’s poison, and Geno is about to tell him he doesn’t have to take it, but Oksana knocks their shots together and smiles, and Sidney’s face sets.

By midnight, Sidney’s tongue and lips are stained blue and Oksana has switched to straight shots, knocked back from her perch on Geno’s lap. She is warm and heavy in his arms and Geno tightens his hold on her and presses his forehead against her back. When the ball drops and people start shouting, she twists around and kisses him, lingering and oddly soft, before pulling back and looking at him with bright, happy drunkenness. 

“Happy New Year,” Oksana says, and Geno says it back, kissing her again quickly. Then he just barely stops himself from throwing her off him when she whispers, “We can ask him to join us, you know?”

“ _No_ ,” Geno says, scowling heavily, heavier when she throws her head back and laughs deeply. There are lines, and then there are _lines_ , and Geno is not nearly drunk enough to think that could ever be a good idea.

“Happy New Year,” Sidney tells them, wrestling his way out of Flower’s clinging hug. “2008, it’s—it’s gonna be good.”

“It could be,” Oksana says, and Geno pinches her. She sounds nothing but kind when she says, “Happy New Year, Sidney.”

“Yeah,” Sidney says. Then he goes out onto Tanger’s back porch and vomits all over it.

“It’s blue!” Jordy shouts from outside, and Geno laughs kind of helplessly.

 

“I just want you to know that I know what I’m doing,” Sidney says, very seriously. Then he goes back to kissing across Geno’s bare chest, swiftly cutting off whatever answer Geno had been trying to summon for that. 

He pays ridiculous, pointed attention to Geno’s nipples, which is not exactly how he’d ever pictured sex with Sidney Crosby to go, the few times he’d pictured it. He hadn’t really thought it was like this for Sidney, is the thing. He’d known about the crush, the sweet parts, that flush of his that Geno had started to hoard like something precious, the way he’ll always laugh louder than anybody else in the room at one of Geno’s dumb jokes. 

But this—this _want_ , powerful and consuming and rushing out in Sidney’s hot breath over his damp skin, that flush so much darker now and spread down Sidney’s heaving chest—Geno hadn’t been prepared for that. He’s not complaining, but it’s still kind of baffling. 

“You’re sure?” Sidney says against Geno’s lower abdomen, mumbled just to the left of his navel. Geno laughs, huffy and disbelieving, and palms the side of Sidney’s face. He runs his thumb across the top of Sidney’s cheekbone and watches him turn his face into the touch.

“Sure,” Geno says, very firmly. “ _You_ sure?”

Sidney laughs too, like Geno had told a joke that no one else would think is funny. He kisses Geno’s palm and then leans forward on his hands and knees to kiss Geno deeply on the mouth.

“Yeah,” he says, touching their foreheads. “Yeah, for a really long time, I’ve been sure.”

“Good,” Geno says, and he strokes his hands up Sidney’s back. “Okay, can keep—”

Sidney laughs again and moves down, kissing over Geno’s right nipple again, then his left, then scraping his teeth over the hardened peaks when Geno bucks up into it. He resumes his journey down Geno’s sternum and stomach, nuzzling at the waistband of his boxers. When Geno’s breath hitches slightly, Sidney looks up at him and then slowly lowers his mouth down, open and wet over Geno’s hard, clothed dick.

“ _Sid_ ,” Geno says. Sidney keeps mouthing at him, as if that’s a completely acceptable sex practice and not meant to drive Geno insane. He tries to make this point by kneeing Sidney in the side, but Sidney just huffs out another laugh, hot and ridiculous over his crotch. 

Geno shouldn’t be smiling like an idiot, should be cursing Sidney and his country and whoever taught him to tease people like that (he _really_ wants to curse out that person). But he is smiling like an idiot, staring up at the ceiling, fisting his hand in Sidney’s thick hair and letting him nuzzle around and _lick_ until he’s too hard to really think straight.

“Tease,” he spits out, and Sidney doesn’t laugh this time, but he does pop his head up as far as Geno’s hand will allow. 

“ _Hey_ ,” Sidney says, not sounding nearly as offended as he probably wants to. “This is foreplay, okay.”

“Crazy,” Geno says nonsensically, and with some clumsy maneuvering he’s able to haul Sidney up and flip them so that Sidney’s the one on his back, face turned up to the ceiling and his eyes wide and dark. 

_Beautiful_ , Geno thinks, followed quickly by the words _terrible_ and _crazy_ again. Sidney stares up at him and swallows hard and says, “I like you so much,” and Geno _knows_.

And it’s not like this is the first time he’s really figuring that out. He’s known it forever, Sidney has never kept it a secret. He knew how Sidney felt through the first breakup with Oksana and the second breakup with Oksana and Sergei leaving and fighting with Alex and making up with Alex and losing the Cup and winning the Cup and Sidney there, through it all. His friend, Sidney has always been his friend, and Geno thinks that’s the one thing they can’t change, no matter how they both feel otherwise. 

Feeling it is different from knowing it, though. He’d known, at least for a little while, that maybe things were starting to feel reciprocal, that maybe there was a reason that he could never stop thinking of Sidney, through all of that and more. But now that all rushes through him, quick and heady and bright, and Geno thinks he could fly on the feeling forever.

“I like you too,” Geno says, and they’ve said it before, they’ve said it differently before, but it’s never meant this much. 

Now it means Sidney’s face lit up, and Geno needing to press their mouths together, to open them up and slide their tongues together and keep kissing until they’re both panting. Sidney’s face is still lit up when they pull away, and Geno has to kiss all over it, light and quick and stupidly happy, until Sidney’s laughing again. 

He wants to bottle that sound for keeps, and more sounds than that, and moves down Sidney’s body to elicit more.

“ _This_ is foreplay,” Geno says, pulling Sidney’s boxers down and tossing them over the side of his bed. He doesn’t hesitate in taking Sidney’s dick in his mouth, rubs over his thighs with his two hands when Sidney moans and shakes all over.

Sidney keeps shaking, through Geno’s mouth on him and then his hand and then both. Geno is careful with the pace, keeping it steady but not wanting to overwhelm Sidney— _yet_ —or end this before he can map out exactly what works. He draws back when his name becomes a litany dropped from Sidney’s lips, looks up and smiles at Sidney with complete, honest enjoyment, and smiles wider when Sidney swears at him.

“Now who’s teasing?” Sidney says, really too coherent for Geno’s purposes. So he sighs like this is a great tragedy and goes back to what he was doing, sliding his mouth down until his nose bumps into his fist around the base of Sidney’s dick.

With his other hand, Geno strokes across the soft skin of Sidney’s inner thigh until he’s cupping his balls, gently, looking up again. Sidney makes a noise that sounds like it was punched out of him, breathless and a little whimpery, and Geno cups his hand a bit firmer and uses his fingers, too. Sidney’s thighs tremble and spread wider, his hips shifting down the bed in a clear, universal signal for _more_ and Geno hums, more pleased than he’s probably ever been in this position.

Sidney’s legs are heavy over his back, thighs warm over Geno’s shoulders, but it’s easier like this to kiss at where his hand had been. Here, Geno can feel Sidney’s moans roll through his limbs and his hips and vibrate against Geno’s mouth. It’s a good feeling, a good place to be. 

“Christ,” Sidney says, and also, “Geno,” and “Fuck,” and “ _Please_ ,” which is enough to get Geno’s mouth back on his dick, tonguing over the head and sucking just beneath it to feel him shake even more, thighs tensing up over Geno’s shoulders. His next words are frantic and warning and Geno heeds them just in time to watch Sidney come, spurting over Geno’s fist and onto his own chest. 

His mouth is dropped open and his eyes are squeezed shut and Geno stays staring at him as he yanks his boxers down, runs a hand through the slickness on Sidney’s belly and palms his own dick. He’s on the edge too quickly, so hard it almost hurts, and Sidney is just barely aware enough to make a weak protest and vague motion towards Geno with his hand.

“Shush,” Geno says, knocking his hand away and jerking himself harder. Sidney’s eyes open a little wider at that, enough to lock with Geno’s, and then of course he doesn’t shush. 

“Come on, Geno. On me.”

Geno hisses out through his teeth, pleasure punched through him. His stomach is tight and he’s surrounded by Sidney’s smell, still between his sprawled out legs, and everything feels a little hazy already, and a lot perfect. 

“Come on me, Geno, let go, do it, come on—”

“ _Sid_ ,” Geno gasps, and he releases all over Sidney’s stomach. 

“Good,” Sidney says, sounding way too smug, and Geno is too busy trying not to faceplant straight into the mess they’ve both made to glare at him, even mockingly.

Instead, he lets Sidney shift slightly away and then up on his knees, drawing Geno in for a kiss at the same time as he grabs for Geno’s discarded boxer shorts. Geno manages to blurt out a small, disgruntled, “Gross, Sid,” when Sidney starts wiping his stomach down in the space between them, but then Sidney gets them on their sides and much more comfortable, and really he doesn’t mean it.

They lie facing each other for a few minutes, Geno slowly coming back to himself, thinking now about kissing Sidney again and feeling kind of flushed at the thought of never wanting to stop. Sidney is just looking at him, studying him like he’s watching footage of a big win. He’s pink again, the color high in his cheeks that Geno has started thinking of as _his_ , and Geno kind of just wants to—keep him. 

He takes a minute to feel ridiculous, and he feels more ridiculous when Sidney says, “Hi,” and smiles at him, small and just a little bit uncertain.

“Hi, Sid,” Geno says, and he is very certain when he leans to kiss Sidney again, more certain than maybe he’s ever been.

 

When they wake up together, the sun is just going down and Sidney is sprawled out on his stomach. His face is mashed into the pillow and his hair is sticking up in tufts where Geno had been pulling on it, and he sleeps with his lips kind of pursed and these little wheezing sounds coming out through his nose.

Geno rolls and tries to stretch with minimal movement, but Sidney sleeps through it soundly, and Geno is glad to get some more time. Sidney is a champion napper, has been conditioned for napping for years, and this is a good thing because he’s kind of terrible at sleeping all the way through the night. 

Tonight will be one of those nights Sidney sits up watching garbage on TV: Friends reruns he’s seen a billion times, or one of his recorded History Channel shows. He and Geno have slept the entire afternoon away, and Geno’s stomach is reminding him of the dinner he missed. 

He’d taken down frozen hamburger patties to grill, and he’s wondering if Sidney will like that when he realizes that he should be wondering if Sidney will even stay for dinner. Will he stay to sit up all night on Geno’s couch, maybe with Geno dosing next to him? Geno’s pretty good at getting himself to sleep when he needs to, and they have a morning practice tomorrow before their game. 

Geno doesn’t know what Sidney plans to do. He wants to know, and he is kind of terrified to know, and his stomach is rolling with something more than hunger now. Falling asleep in the middle of the afternoon before a game day is usually a bad idea; falling asleep after sex in the middle of the afternoon with what is essentially his ex-boyfriend is always a terrible idea.

“You are so stupid,” Geno says softly, staring up at the ceiling. He is talking to both of them, because they’re both stupid, both complicit in this idiocy. 

It’s easy to forget how stupid they both are, though, just watching Sidney sleep. Geno watches his nose twitch with those stupid wheezy breaths—not snores, no, if they were snores Geno could complain about them. Instead, they are tiny sounds for Geno to count, to match his breaths to, and to miss when they’re apart. 

“Stupid,” Geno says, and Sidney sighs a little in his sleep, like he might agree.

Sidney mumbles something when he’s waking up, too soft and slurred for Geno to understand, and he pushes his face harder into the pillow just before he blinks his eyes open to land them on Geno. For a second, his face goes soft, like maybe he’s forgotten, too—Geno has to admit that he’d forgotten just a bit about these last six weeks before he was fully awake, was just too happy to be warm and listening to Sidney breathe again—and Geno watches his eyelashes flutter in a few more blinks.

“Hi,” Sidney says, and Geno’s heart feels like it’s been jammed through a meat grinder.

“Sid,” Geno says, swallowing hard and looking away, so he doesn’t have to watch Sidney remember. He feels it instead—tension bleeding in from the other side of the bed, and Sidney going stiff in mere seconds. He doesn’t exactly leap off the bed, but he rocks to the side for a minute like he’s thinking about it, leaving what feels like a canyon of space between their bodies.

“Oh,” Sidney says, and then, “Fuck.” Geno sighs and puts his hands behind his head, concentrates on how hungry he is because it’s much easier to deal with that than what’s rattling around in his chest.

“Not change your mind?” Geno bites out, and it’s not really a question; he knows Sidney hasn’t. Everything would have been different earlier if he had—they’d have napped on the couch, maybe. Sidney would have woken up and poked Geno in the stomach and said, “I’m hungry, wake up,” even if Geno was already awake. They wouldn’t be completely naked, either—Geno doesn’t like to sleep without clothes and Sidney usually puts something on because he says he feels “weird” when he’s naked in bed and Geno isn’t. They’d both passed out too quickly for that, though, burnt out on the bursts of their anger and frustration with each other. 

He can feel Sidney shaking his head, and his voice is low and apologetic when he says, “No,” but it’s enough to piss Geno off again.

“Then why come? Why—” Geno gestures between them, and he’d really, really rather not be naked for this conversation, but he doesn’t know exactly where Sidney had thrown his clothes, and he’s not exactly in a position to just throw on Sidney’s sweats from where they’re dangling over the footboard. 

“I missed you?” Sidney says, like a question, and Geno grits his teeth.

“See me every day, or every other day. We work together, drink together, play together—”

“It’s not the same,” Sidney tells him, just this side of petulant. It’s not cute, just frustrating, and for a moment Geno wishes he could be in this situation with literally anybody else, anyone who approaches these things with some kind of ability to see the other side. 

Sidney has the best vision Geno has ever known, but it’s clear that he’s completely blind to what he’s putting Geno through right now. It makes him want to climb back on top of Sidney until Geno is all that he can see, all that he ever wants to focus on. A long time ago, that was the last thing Geno wanted; now, he wishes he could have that time back.

“I know is not the same,” Geno says quietly. “Is what _you_ wanted.”

“I didn’t want to break up,” Sidney says, and Geno gets out of bed with a loud groan. “Oh come on, don’t be a baby. It’s true. I didn’t want to—you have no idea—”

“Think maybe you should leave,” Geno tells him. He pulls the sheet around him to shuffle over to his dresser, pulling out the first clean clothes his hands touch and shimmying into them. He’s too hungry for a shower, stomach hollow and gnawing at him as he scratches at the come dried on it. 

“Geno, come on,” Sidney says pleadingly, and Geno looks back at him, lying on the edge of Geno’s bed like he’ll topple off any minute, arms folded over his chest again. He’s naked on top of the covers and his thighs have bite marks on them, finger bruises that Geno remembers putting there with vicious, unrelenting purpose. He looks like he’d be fine with staying there all night, all month, in exactly that state, his dick soft against his thigh and his chest red from Geno’s mouth, and that would really, truly be fine with Geno, too, but.

“Not change your mind?” Geno asks. “Still break up?” 

Sidney sags slightly, like all the air has been let out of him. His picks up a hand to run it tiredly over his face, through his hair, messing it up more than Geno had. “Yeah,” he says softly, not looking at Geno anymore. “Yeah, we still can’t—”

“Then need to go,” Geno tells him firmly. “Can’t come back, not like—not like this.”

Sidney is quiet, staring at the floor. His face is very blank when he says, “Yeah, okay Geno.”

Geno leaves Sidney to get dressed and let himself out. He busies himself feeding Jeffrey and Dixi, both giving him judgmental looks that Geno truly has coming to him, and as he’s putting his burgers on a plate to bring them outside, Sidney comes down.

“See you tomorrow,” Sidney says. He puts Geno’s key down on the kitchen counter and pulls his hat down over his ears, leaving through the front. Geno sets the plate down and picks up the key and suddenly doesn’t feel hungry anymore.

 

The first time Geno and Oksana break up, it feels very permanent.

It’s mostly about timing, he thinks—it’s after a bad fight about the future, right before playoffs where everything is a little keyed up and that much more intense. Geno is supposed to be thinking about defending their title, bringing the Cup home again, only now he’s thinking about how he’d be bringing it back without Oksana, and it’s probably the worst feeling in the world. 

Fighting about marriage, of all things, when he’s 23 years old feels really, really dumb, which is something that Oksana takes offense to, of course. Their fights are about practical logistics, much too dry and sensible to be causing this drowning, aching feeling inside of him, and Oksana points out that that’s a problem, too. 

“We’ll think about where this is going in the summer,” Oksana tells him as she’s packing. Geno can’t help but watch her and think _this is not going where you’ll stay with me in Pittsburgh until I can come home_ and so he doesn’t really see the point of waiting until the summer if that’s not going to change, but he doesn’t say that. “We’ll talk when you get home. For now, good luck and get your head in that game before you embarrass yourself and I can’t be seen with you anymore.”

“You’re so sweet to me,” Geno says. “Whatever happened to fidelity and devotion?”

He’s only half-kidding, and Oksana must know it, because she gives him a long look before she pointedly zips up her suitcase. “I’m going to go,” she says, kissing him on the cheek. “Before we say something very stupid.”

“You never say anything stupid,” Geno tries, but Oksana just squeezes the back of his neck and leaves.

It takes all of three seconds in Max’s presence at practice for basically everyone to know that something’s going on. Since Max is patient zero, the alarmingly immediate solution is to take Geno out and get him hammered, which everybody is very quickly on board with. 

Geno would honestly rather it be just him and Sergei, and maybe not in a crowded bar but alone, where he can be sad in his own perfectly manly, not embarrassing at all way, but there’s no stopping Max. Not even Sidney’s vehement warnings (“The playoffs are coming!” he says with some authority, but he is very quickly overridden by Max grabbing Geno and cupping his cheeks and going, “But look at this sad puppy face, Sid. This is the face of a man who needs a lot of alcohol.” Apparently, Sidney cannot argue with his sad puppy face) can derail the plan, not that he stops complaining throughout the night.

“Think about the hangover,” Sidney tells him as he watches Geno down shot after shot of whatever Tanger puts in front of him. “Think about facing the Sens and throwing up in the crease. They’ll make up a new rule, the Malkin Rule, against puking on the opposing goaltender.”

“How is that not a rule already?” Tanger asks, frowning thoughtfully, and Geno nudges him for more shots because that is _not_ the only flaw in Sidney’s logic.

“Hangover not last days, Sid. Be fine for games.” Geno scowls darkly into the shot Tanger sticks under his nose. “Win another Cup, bring it home, fill with supermodels and show _her_.” 

“Fuck yeah!” Tanger yells in stereo with Max, Flower and Cookie. Sergei just smiles at him patiently and Sidney looks kind of pained, like _he_ might be the one to throw up in the crease, as Geno clinks shot glasses violently with Max. 

“How many supermodels do you think you can fit in the Cup?” Tanger wonders out loud. “Did anyone test this last year?”

“All the more reason to win it again,” Flower says, and Geno has to laugh at Sidney’s face at that, like Flower just seriously proposed killing his mom.

“No, no, better idea,” Max says, holding his hands up. Sidney looks like he’s just _daring_ Max to say that there’s a better idea than winning the Cup, his hand tight around his beer bottle like he’s completely prepared to use it as a weapon, and Geno has to hide a grin into his next drink, because he’s suddenly really glad Sidney had tagged along to “watch out” for them. “We put Sid in the Cup and Geno takes him home. That’ll show her.”

Sidney flushes scarlet, looking down in a way that makes Geno immediately feel kind of bereft. No one’s brought up the crush thing in a long time, and with good reason, apparently—the mood is suddenly awkward and Max is looking like he’s already regretful of what he’d said, which Geno can’t remember ever happening before. But then Flower says, “Yeah, there’s no _way_ Sid’s ass can fit in the Cup, sorry Geno,” and everybody’s coming up with all the humongous things that could fit in the Cup over Sidney’s ass, and the awkwardness is gone.

Geno does stop drinking eventually, late enough that he knows he’s going to be feeling this tomorrow but early enough that it won’t be so bad. Sidney nods approvingly and tips his half-empty beer at Geno and Geno should be annoyed, really, should tell Sidney to get the stick out of his ass and maybe try something harder than Coors Light. 

But all he really feels right now is fondness, which is a strange thing to feel right after a breakup. The fondness spreads when he catches Sidney yawning into his hand and rubbing at his eyes a little, and he cuts off the dangerous glint in Flower’s eye by moving in closer and throwing an arm around Sidney’s shoulders.

“Can go home,” Geno tells him. “I am okay.”

“No,” Sidney says automatically. “I’m your captain. You can, uh, cry on my shoulder if you want to. I won’t mind.”

“Not gonna cry.” Geno smiles and squeezes Sidney, trying to ignore how Sidney leans into him slightly. Flower is still watching them, but Geno hopes he doesn’t have to worry about him; he doesn’t like to embarrass Sidney too much, when he knows it could really hurt. “Promise am okay. Go home, is past bedtime.”

“Shut up,” Sidney says crankily, and he ducks his head onto Geno’s shoulder just for a second before sighing and shoving away. “Fine. Please don’t drink too much more, okay, and if you get stuck without a cab home you can call me, I’ll come back.”

“I know,” Geno says, and he pats Sidney’s arm, grinning at him. “Best captain.”

“Yep,” Sidney chirps, and he says goodnight to the rest of the guys and leaves.

He’s gone for all two seconds before Max swoops in, a tiny brunette on one arm and a taller blonde on the other. “Sid’s gone, so I can introduce stage two of the Maxime Talbot Broken Hearts Rehab Program,” he says, nudging the blonde into Geno’s side. Geno puts an arm around her without really thinking about it.

Sergei apparently takes that as his cue to leave, too, and thumps him on the back. “Be good,” he tells Geno. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Then I’d do nothing,” Geno says, and the blonde leans in close to him, smiling.

“What language is that?” 

“Russian. Best language. Good for tongue.” The blonde laughs, warm and hearty, and Geno mouths _thank you_ over her shoulder to Max, who just waves at him and tugs the brunette away.

He makes out with the blonde while she’s waiting in line for the bathroom, and then makes out with the brunette while he’s holding the blonde’s purse. Max isn’t really bothered, just hugs Geno tight as they get a cab together, pressing a sloppy kiss to the side of his head and saying, “You’ll be okay, G, I know it, we’ll get you through this.” 

“Yes,” Geno agrees, patting Max’s face a little blearily. “Have good friends.”

“Yeah, _lots_ of good friends, best friends,” Max tells him, and the rest of what he says is in French, so Geno feels free to tune it out and doze. 

The next morning, he’s pretty sure they were both wrong—Geno has the _worst_ friends, because Sidney is at his door at 9 am in a ball cap with a very determined look on his face. “C’mon, get dressed,” he snaps in greeting, as Geno contemplates shutting the door in his face. “We’re going out for breakfast, I have a plan.”

Geno says several unpleasant things in Russian about Sidney, his country, and his mother, but Sidney just rolls his eyes and shoves into Geno’s house, Dixi and Jeffrey following him around like terrible traitors.

“When I broke up with Danika, Jack took me out for pancakes,” Sidney says while he goes through Geno’s drawers, pulling clothes out for him. Geno has no idea who Sidney is talking about, no idea if he’s supposed to know who those people are, but decides it’s too early to do anything but just go with it. “Then we went and watched baseball in a Faribault bar, that was pretty cool. But they weren’t just regular pancakes; Jack said that silver dollar pancakes are the ultimate cure for the broken heart, anything else is just a lie.”

“Silver dollar—what?” Geno asks, deciding that there are just way too many blanks in this conversation. Sidney shoves his clothes at him and puts his hands on his hips until Geno rolls his eyes and starts putting them on.

“They’re pancakes but smaller. I don’t know, they helped I guess. And it made Jack happy to help me out, so.” Sidney wrinkles his nose a bit, shaking his head. “I think Jack was just annoyed that all those kissing lessons he gave me turned out to be a bust.”

“ _What_?”

So that’s how he winds up eating small pancakes with Sidney, listening to him explain in low, shifty-eyed tones about how he’d had his first kiss with his first girlfriend at Shattuck, and he was a lousy kisser so he asked Jack Johnson for advice. Geno stuffs his face with the small pancakes and thinks about how he’d really, really like to meet the Kings in the Stanley Cup Finals just to somehow use this information against Johnson. 

“Small pancakes work,” Geno says, only joking a little bit; they honestly have, and Sidney’s responding smile also definitely helps. “I am cure, thank you Sid.”

“Well, we’re not finished,” Sidney says bossily. “Baseball, too.”

Geno makes a face, stomach turning a bit at the thought of being in a bar again, but Sidney just shrugs and produces Pirates tickets, flushing a bit and dropping them onto the table. Geno stares at them for so long that Sidney puts his hand over them and flushes darker, snapping, “Look, I’m not making a move on you, I’m just trying to be a good friend. We don’t have to—” and Geno slaps his hand over Sidney’s before he can take the tickets back.

“You are _best_ friend,” Geno says seriously, and then he smiles a bit. “Not making a move?”

“Shut up,” Sidney says, rubbing the back of his neck and trying to yank his other hand back. Geno allows it, but only once he sees that Sidney has left the tickets on the table. He smiles, too, a little sheepish, and Geno is full and warm and way happier than he has any right to be, really. “I can joke about it. Everyone else does.”

It’s definitely the closest Sidney has ever come to acknowledging his crush on Geno out loud, and it’s making Geno’s stomach do funny, squirmy things that are pretty damn confusing. But this isn’t the kind of day to really dwell on that—this is a day for baseball, sunny and cool in great seats on the first base line. 

Sidney buys them ridiculous amounts of food, saying “The playoffs are coming,” all sagely, like maybe he has that mantra taped on his shower wall. Geno just eats his nachos and frowns at their Coors Light, wincing every time he takes a drink.

“9 dollars a cup for pee,” he bitches, and Sidney just waves at him and tells him to get his own if it’s such a problem, adjusting his sunglasses and leaning back in his seat. 

“It’s early enough that their record isn’t tanked yet,” Sidney says, inhaling his hot dog like it’s going to be snatched away from him. “You know, there’s still hope. They have a winning record.”

“Is second game,” Geno points out, and Sidney shrugs; there’s mustard on his chin. Geno finds himself twitching in his seat, so much affection bursting within him that he feels like he might need to run around a bit. It’s a weird feeling, not entirely unfamiliar but not exactly comfortable, either. 

Baseball is definitely not the most riveting sport, but Sidney gets into it so Geno does too, leaning forward in his seat at pivotal points, booing the Dodgers faithfully, chanting “Let’s go Bucs!” when the rest of the crowd does. The game goes on long, ending with extra inning batting heroics from Cedeno and the crowd wild on its feet, Sidney laughing in delight and knocking over the last of Geno’s beer.

“Sorry!” he shouts over the noise, and Geno grins at him and tugs him close, unable to stop himself.

“Is okay, tastes like pee.”

“You love it!” Sidney yells, elbowing him in the side, and Geno doesn’t, he really doesn’t, but he nods anyway, smiling so big his jaw kind of hurts.

They leave the Pirates with a winning record that day, Geno sticking close to Sidney as they follow the crowd out and saying, “Very much cure, Sid, thank you.” That game isn’t enough to give the Pirates a winning record for April, or May, or pretty much any month that season, but Geno watches them on TV sometimes and thinks about watching them when the season was still new, when there was still hope, and thinks of Sidney and feels kind of warm and stupid.

The ballpark food fuels them through beating the Sens (Coors Light notwithstanding) and into the second round, where the Habs send them packing in seven games. It’s pretty rough, and rougher still is leaving Sidney behind when Geno goes home. “Sorry you don’t have a Cup to fill with supermodels,” Sidney tells him in lieu of a proper goodbye, and Geno doesn’t tell him about how little he’s been thinking of supermodels or Oksana these past few weeks.

“Next year,” Geno says, pulling Sidney into a hug and fighting down a shiver when Sidney presses his face into his neck. “Next year, we start new, new winning record. Now there’s hope again.”

Sidney laughs a little. “Not the same thing, really.”

But Geno thinks it kind of is. He goes home, and it takes him approximately six days to get back together with Oksana, but through it all he can’t help but think about having hope again. He thinks about starting over that summer, with a new record to turn into a winning one and a blank slate. He thinks about being too new to be tanked yet, different and _possible_ , and it’s a thought that keeps him up at night, keeps his fingers busy on his phone, answering texts with careful, fragile hope.

When Oksana tells him she’s not coming back to Pittsburgh with him, he texts Sidney. Sidney texts back that he’ll have the small pancakes ready, but he shouldn’t look at the Pirates’ record if he wants to be cheered up. _Baseball in September can be a lot sadder than baseball in April if you’re a Bucs fan_ , Sidney says, and Geno thinks about how he doesn’t really need the small pancakes or baseball, but he kind of wants them anyway.

 _better idea_ , Geno texts back, and he tells his American agent to pick them up some Steelers tickets. 

 

Things are weird, at a time when they’re really not supposed to be weird (“The playoffs are coming!” Sidney shouts at everyone, tapping out a specific pattern on the locker room wall for superstitious reasons only he understands). Geno would be perfectly happy pretending that things aren’t weird, except for how Flower corners him one day still in all his pads, crosses his arms over his chest, and goes, “Okay, what the fuck?” 

Geno feels very vulnerable in just his workout clothes; if Flower body-checked him right now, he’d be toast. Flower looks severe enough that that’s exactly what he might do, and Geno tries to steel himself.

“Don’t know what—”

“Oh please,” Flower says, waving a gloved hand around. “I’m not Max, but I’m not an idiot, either. Something’s gone weird with you and Sidney, and pretty much the only words that ever come out of Sidney’s mouth this time of year are ‘the playoffs are coming!’ so I’m working on you instead.” He softens, just slightly, and Geno relaxes just as slightly out of his defensive position. “Is he upset about Oksana coming back?”

“Shouldn’t tell team,” Geno had said, over a year ago when he and Sidney had officially gotten together. “Not hide, but not make big announcement, make it big thing. Could be weird.”

“Definitely,” Sidney had agreed. “We’ll just—see what happens. No sex in the dressing room, eh?” He’d laughed at himself, and Geno had laughed at him laughing at himself, and then he’d thought about fucking Sidney in the rink showers and that was pretty much the end of any talking. But that’s how they’d played the whole thing from that point on: the team didn’t know. 

It was easy enough to hide a relationship when barely anything outwardly changed; Sidney and Geno always hung out a lot, always stuck together at parties they didn’t bring dates to or at bars when they didn’t mean to pick up. Adding sex into the equation was a simple thing to cover up, and though sometimes Geno felt like he was broadcasting all of his gooey, ridiculous feelings for Sidney all over the place, nobody mentioned them. Sidney had been broadcasting those feelings for years, and the team had gotten over them just as they assumed Sidney had. 

“Oksana not coming back,” Geno tells Flower, because he can’t say _yes, sort of, and also because we dated for 18 months and then broke up and then had angry sex again_ , because Flower doesn’t _know_. “We just—talk. Not serious.”

“Right,” Flower says, rolling his eyes. “Because you’re not going to get back together with her again the second you touch down on Russian soil. Sure.”

Geno glares a little. “Even if we do, not your business, or Sid’s.” _Not really_ he adds guiltily, but it’s really a moot point; he and Oksana are as over as he and Sidney, that much was made clear by her visit.

“Come on Geno, you’ve gotta give me something,” Flower says, and Geno is about to go off about gossipy teammates, but then Flower adds, “I’m worried about him, okay?” and Geno has to sigh big, suddenly exhausted.

“Sid is fine,” Geno says slowly. “Back playing, playing good, he has everything he wants now.” But Flower won’t stop frowning, not convinced, and Geno bitterly thinks of how Flower would feel if he knew all the facts, if he’d still think Sidney is the one to be worried about. Geno doesn’t want anybody worrying over him, but he thinks it’s a little unfair that he still looks like the asshole in all this, years after he’d stopped feeling like one. 

“I talk to him,” he relents, and Flower finally starts to smile a bit, clapping him on the back. 

“You’re a good man, Geno,” Flower tells him, and Geno thinks stupidly of Max, what he’d do if Geno spilled the whole thing to him. Sergei is wonderful but Max is different, Max is somehow _fiercer_ , and he thinks despairingly about how the Maxime Talbot Broken Hearts Rehab Program is something he really could’ve used through all this.

He also wishes that this were something that small pancakes and baseball could fix, but that’s a more painful thought.

“I am best man,” Geno says, and he wishes he could feel like it. 

He heads to Sidney’s house the night after a disastrous Flyers loss at home, which is really probably the worst time to pick for any kind of talking. Geno doesn’t actually want to talk, is the thing. He tells himself that he intends to, but he’s still vibrating with the loss, with the tension the game had been fraught with, and the image of Sidney leaving the locker room with barely a word to anyone. 

He’s not deluded enough to keep thinking that he’s doing this because Flower told him to, and as he parks his car in Sidney’s driveway, his hands are shaking with his own want, all of the frustration he hadn’t been able to release during the game. Geno thinks he should probably leave, should probably take a page out of Laviolette’s book and break some sticks. He thinks he should stop thinking about Max in orange, shoving at Geno by the bench, or Sidney taking a cross-check in the back from a rookie kid that doesn’t even deserve to share the ice with him. 

He should leave, he should stop thinking about the Rangers securing the division title and think _the playoffs are coming_ and think about how they’ll definitely be there, they can definitely fix this, it’s just one stupid game. 

But then Sidney’s front door swings open, and Sidney’s still half in his suit from the post-game, his tie undone around his neck and his shirt untucked and his feet bare, trouser bottoms trailing the floor. He glares at Geno viciously through his windshield, and before he can even think about it, Geno’s getting out of his car and loping up the walkway. 

“I’m really, really not in the mood for a fight tonight, Geno,” Sidney says, though his fists balled at his sides totally say otherwise. “Why don’t you go find Max and pound his face in, so I don’t have to?”

“Like you can,” Geno says, snorting, and when Sidney’s fists come up Geno grabs them and uses them to shove Sidney into his house, slamming the front door after him. He pushes Sidney back against the wall of his foyer and leans in slow enough that Sidney must know exactly what he’s going to do, but doesn’t let go of his fists because he’d rather not get punched for doing it.

Sidney doesn’t punch him, though, doesn’t even make a move to. He lets Geno crush him against the wall with his whole body, lets him slam their mouths together. His head thunks against the wall and Geno freezes in horror, jerking back in a split second, and Sidney snarls and wrestles one hand free before reaching up and yanking Geno back to him by his hair.

“No, you don’t get to chicken out on me,” Sidney says against his mouth, and Geno kisses him harder, tasting copper on his tongue and reveling in not knowing whose it is. He pulls both of his own hands free to fit behind Sidney’s head, holding it steady and cushioning it against the wall, and Sidney makes an annoyed noise and bites his bottom lip.

“Fine,” Geno rasps out. “Upstairs.”

“Yeah,” Sidney says imperiously, like it was his idea, and Geno glares at his back as he starts for the stairs, adjusts himself in his pants before following him up. 

Sidney’s mostly naked by the time Geno gets to the bedroom, clothes in a pile on his floor and his back bare and bruised to Geno’s view. He has his hands hooked into the waistband of his boxer-briefs when he turns to look at Geno, and he raises his eyebrows at Geno’s nod.

“Off,” Geno says sharply, and he’s not sure what’s hotter: the fact that Sidney colors, looking momentarily confused long enough for Geno to realize he’d spoken in Russian, or the fact that he unknowingly complies anyway, stripping his briefs off and kicking them towards the clothes pile. He stands naked, looking as defiant as he can with his dick a hard line against his stomach, and Geno eyes him hungrily before adjusting himself again and then stepping forward.

He lines himself up all along Sidney’s front and presses them together, knows when his belt buckle bumps Sidney’s cock because he gasps into Geno’s mouth. Geno runs his hand along Sidney’s back, pressing until Sidney groans a little and rocks away from the touch, and then he cups his palm over the rounded swell of Sidney’s bare ass and pushes them further together, even though there’s no further to go. 

Sidney keeps kissing him like it’s the only thing keeping him tethered to the world. Geno doesn’t think about how much he likes being Sidney’s anchor and just kisses him back, holding on to him as tight as he can. Sidney’s hands are wedged between them, fumbling with Geno’s belt and trying to untuck his shirt from beneath his jacket.

Geno lets him get rid of the belt, get his pants open, but draws back to take his jacket off. His shoes and socks go next and when he says, “Get on bed,” Sidney trips over them, stumbling to comply.

He doesn’t strip any further than taking off his tie, rolling up his shirt-sleeves, and he watches Sidney’s eyes go dark and wide as he moves to join him on the bed still mostly clothed. Almost immediately, Sidney moves over his lap, kneeling and grabbing at him, and Geno fits a thigh between Sidney’s and pushes up and watches Sidney gasp. 

“Gonna ruin your clothes,” Sidney says against his cheek, low and like a promise, and Geno growls and presses his hand over Sidney’s hip, pushing him to ride his thigh. Sidney jerks against him, still groping between them like he wants proof that Geno’s as hard as he is, his dick already leaving a wet spot against Geno’s shirt, and Geno locks a hand around Sidney’s wrist and pushes his hand against the bulge of his erection. 

“Don’t care about clothes, do something about this,” Geno says, and Sidney groans a little.

“Yeah, m’gonna, if you’ll just _let_ me—”

“Let me fuck you,” Geno tells him, muffling another groan against his mouth, and he kisses Sidney and feels him squirming and shuddering against him. It’s definitely an answer in the affirmative, but Sidney still wrenches his mouth away to bite out, “Yeah, fuck yeah, do it,” and then scrambles out of Geno’s hold to grab supplies. 

He shoves the lube and a condom into Geno’s hand and gets on his hands and knees, which makes Geno roll his eyes a bit and also go hot. “I’m going to morning skate tomorrow, so be generous with that,” Sidney orders, and Geno rolls his eyes again and puts the lube by Sidney’s calf to warm. “Geno,” Sidney says warningly, jumping a little when Geno thumbs over his hole dry, but his further bossing around is pretty effectively cut off when Geno ducks down to follow his thumb with his tongue.

“Oh my God,” Sidney says, which at once makes Geno feel both embarrassed and smug. Sidney rocks back into it, though, deciding Geno’s continued course of action for him, and so Geno fucks Sidney with his tongue steadily, stretching him open carefully and pressing sucking kisses at his rim.

Sidney never shuts up, never stops moving even when Geno pinches the skin at his hip or pushes a finger in with his tongue. He gets louder, increasingly annoyed and aroused and then: “Okay, I thought you were going to fuck me,” and Geno leans back, smirking at the crack in Sidney’s voice. 

“I am,” Geno says, leaning back a little and nipping at Sidney’s ass cheek. Sidney jumps a little, glares over his back, and he jerks his leg to send the tube of lubricant sliding down the bedcovers, stopping at Geno’s knee. Geno doesn’t move to grab it, just rubs his thumbs over the taut, jumping muscles in the small of Sidney’s back until Sidney lets out a huffy sound that makes him choke on a laugh.

“Seriously?” Sidney says, and then, “That’s all you’ve got?”

Geno pinches him again, but he sighs too and takes out his dick, muffling a groan when his spit-slick fingers wrap around it. He leans up and presses his dick into the crease of Sidney’s ass, thrusting a few times and feeling Sidney shudder and push back into it, before he loses his patience again.

“Seriously, Geno, _lube_ , I don’t have all night and I’m going to morning skate tomorrow whether you ever get around to fucking me or not, so would you please—”

“I like your mouth a lot more when it has my dick in it,” Geno says. He takes only the briefest second to be horrified with himself, thrusting a bit more like that could be an apology. 

Sidney goes quiet for a precious, short moment, and then huffs again. “I’m going to assume that was an insult, and not _don’t worry, Sid, I’ll get right on with fucking you_ —’” 

“Up, grab headboard,” Geno says. It’s in English, but he thinks there’d be no mistaking his tone in any language, if the way Sidney just shifts quickly and accommodatingly, gripping the headboard with enough strength to make the bed shift on its legs.

Geno uncaps the lube and pours some over his fingers, dripping some more down the place where he’d just been thrusting against. He presses one finger inside and quickly follows it with another, watching Sidney’s grip on the headboard tighten and his chest start to heave. 

Sidney moves against every thrust of Geno’s fingers, moans loudly and approvingly through the addition of a third, and Geno fucks him and watches the muscles in his forearms with rapt attention. The headboard is knocking against the wall with Sidney’s movements and even that sound is turning Geno on right now, his dick aching and leaking and pretty much yelling at him to hurry up as much as Sidney is. Geno takes his time, though, because he can and because he likes to, because he’s missed being able to indulge himself in Sidney and because this might be his last chance.

“Geno,” Sidney says, and he also says “Fuck,” and eventually, inevitably, “ _Please_ ,” and Geno’s never been equipped to hold out for longer than that. He rolls on the condom with slippery fingers, thinking uselessly about how Sidney had been right about his clothes and about how little he still cares. 

He feels kind of crazy for the first moment he fucks into Sidney. There’s a wild heat flaring in his gut, making his hips stutter and then jerk against Sidney’s ass, and it’s all Geno can do to keep from just going for it, slamming in and out of Sidney before he can catch his shallow breaths. Geno’s taking shallow breaths of his own, his hands clenched over Sidney’s hips just as hard as Sidney’s are on the headboard, and his dick throbs with every ragged exhale they both take.

It doesn’t take long for his fragile control to break, because Sidney _still_ can’t shut the fuck up. “Any day now,” he says, voice hoarse and not nearly as steady as he’s going for. But Geno still pulls almost all the way out, just the tip hooked into Sidney’s hole, and he thrusts in harder, leaning forward and gripping Sidney tight and growling, “Never satisfied with me.”

“Geno,” Sidney says, voice wrecked, but whatever else he’d meant to say is cut off by groaning, his head bowing forward and his arms flexing as he holds himself against the headboard, as Geno fucks him harder, pushing him forward so he can go deeper.

“Always giving you what you want, and it’s never good enough,” Geno says, shifting his hips, triumph flaring bright and quick in his chest when he hits on a spot that makes Sidney jerk all over. “So greedy, you take everything, and what do I get back now?”

“You—” Geno hits that spot again, watches Sidney’s arms shake and sweat bead down the back of his bright red neck. 

“Hold on to that, don’t you let go.”

“Fucking Christ, Geno, you’re not—”

“I give you everything, my whole life if you want it, but it’s still not enough, not—”

“Geno, for God’s sake, speak English!” Sidney yells, and Geno reaches around to grab his cock, jerks it roughly against his stomach until Sidney cries out again and comes hard, his grip on the headboard tightening and then loosening.

“Hold on,” Geno growls, fucking Sidney through it, his own orgasm building in his gut. “I hate you. I should hate you. Why did you do this?” 

He comes when Sidney lifts himself up again, bracing himself for Geno to pump into, and Geno presses his face against Sidney’s back and squeezes his stinging eyes shut. Sidney remains locked in the position until Geno pulls out, wraps an arm around his waist and tugs him onto his side. He twists in the hold until he’s facing Geno, watching him tie off the condom and hunt around for the wastebasket that’s always by the nightstand, and when Geno looks back at Sidney, his eyes are wide and bright, hair in damp tufts around his face.

“English, Geno,” Sidney says, visibly trying to harden his expression; it doesn’t quite work. Geno’s shoulders feel heavy as he zips himself back up, stomach turning at the thought of driving home in these disgusting clothes, but unable to even consider staying over right now.

“Have nothing to say,” Geno says in English, and he watches Sidney’s face shut down.

 

“It’s hockey,” Sidney says again, though Geno’s head is too fuzzy to really be keeping count. “I have to—I have to focus on hockey, Geno.”

Geno’s tongue is thick and heavy, and it’s a while before Sidney’s defensive, nearly-imploring expression registers as him waiting for a response. Geno knows he’s been pretty quiet throughout all this, trying to make sense of it in his head. He’s been shifting Sidney’s words around in different orders, his own thoughts coming in desperate, random patterns that are beyond comprehension except for at their very basic: Sidney is breaking up with him.

Really, he should have something to say to that. Sidney wants him to say something, that much is clear, and usually two people talk in a breakup, but this hasn’t gone like any of his other breakups so far. Geno—he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know if he has enough words to say anything.

“I know this is probably—it’s kind of out of the blue, and I’m—” Sidney’s hands have been shaking in his lap for a while now, and pretty much the only urge that Geno can understand right now is to grab them, calm him down. But Geno is shaking all over, and beneath everything, he gets that that the thing he has to do right now is hug himself, as Sidney’s words keep coming. “It’s just—I’m coming back. I’m coming back and I have to be better, I have to work really hard and I can’t let anything—”  
“Won’t stop you,” Geno says, without thinking at all. He listens to the wet sound of Sidney swallowing, staring down at the patch of floor between the couch and the loveseat where they’re sitting respectively. 

“Of—of course you won’t, I’m not saying that. I just can’t let anything—distract me. Hold me back.”

Geno’s next breath is choked; he’d wanted to laugh but it hadn’t worked, exactly. He looks up at Sidney and Sidney’s face is twisted in pain, which is just as bad as his hands that won’t stop shaking. “Been years, Sid. Never distract you before. Never _hold you back._ ”

“It was different, then,” Sidney says, words forced out and pointed, like he’d tried to script this and is determined to stick to it. “You didn’t—you didn’t want me, so it wasn’t as important then. It was just another thing I couldn’t have, and that wasn’t a distraction. It was just something that happened to me, something I could deal with. But then you—”

“Because I want you, too, I distract you?”

“Yes!” Sidney yells, and then he seems to fold in on himself, face attempting to rearrange into the blank slate he faces reporters with. Geno watches a little helplessly, watches as he fails—everything Sidney’s feeling right now is playing out over his face in twists of grief, the corners of his mouth turned perpetually down and his forehead lined with unhappiness. Geno used to think that Sidney had never hidden his feelings from him because he never felt the need, never wanted to waste the energy, but now he can see that that’s not true. Sidney just _can’t_ , is either too out of practice or never actually could.

“I need to focus on coming back,” Sidney continues when it’s clear he’s not going to be able to get himself under control until this is over. “I need to concentrate on being better, and I’m sorry, Geno, but I can’t do that with you.”

“Sorry,” Geno echoes, watching Sidney flinch and clench his fists. “You _sorry._ You play best hockey of life when we get together, I play best hockey of life when I date you, and this about hockey?”

“I _was_ playing the best hockey of my life,” Sidney says. “And then I got hurt.”

Geno feels like he’s been punched in the chest. “My fault?”

“No!” Sidney looks completely horrified, and for a second, Geno is viciously satisfied. But only for a second. “No, fuck, not at all, how can you even— _no._ I’m just saying, I—I got hurt, so—”

“Hit head, so don’t want me anymore?”

There’s a second where he’s sure Sidney is about to hit him, and Geno finds himself bracing for it, welcoming it, wanting the excuse to hit him back. “No,” Sidney says finally, his voice splintery and deathly quiet. “No, I just—I can’t lose hockey again.”

“Sid—”

“I _can’t_ ,” Sidney says, and he sounds like the words are being ripped out of him. His eyes are wide and as devastated as Geno feels, and this is what makes what little fight had crept in through the shock leave him in a sudden swoop. He feels cold and defeated looking at Sidney, so he has to look away, especially when Sidney adds, “Do you understand?”

Geno clenches his jaw but nods, slowly. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I understand, Sid.” Sidney’s next breath sounds like it has a sob attached to it, so Geno definitely can’t look at him, instead plucks up words from the depths of his mind that he hadn’t known were there. “Was—was bad idea, anyway. Work together, teammates, can get—”

“Don’t.” Sidney sniffs, and at the edge of his vision Geno can see him dropping his head into his hands. “Please don’t. I’m sorry.”

“Is okay, I understand. Bad idea to get—to want like this, think we can just—”

“I’m gonna go,” Sidney says, standing up abruptly. Geno stands up with him, watches him walk out with Jeffrey suddenly materializing at his side and bumping his leg. He watches him wipe his face with his sleeve and fumble with the front door and thinks of a hundred different things to say, words Sidney will understand and words he won’t, different ways they can end this or keep it going or fix it. They all flash through his mind at once, and Sidney even looks back like he might be expecting some, eyes red-rimmed and face flushed in a way Geno’s never seen, a cause Geno’s never wanted to have anything to do with.

Geno just looks at Sidney, thinks of all those things he could say, and says maybe the worst thing. “Bye, Sid.”

Sidney nods, pats Jeffrey lightly on the head, and says, “Bye, Geno.”

 

Geno kisses Sidney after the Steelers game, his heart in his throat and his hands clenched in Sidney’s threadbare t-shirt. Sidney is just dropping him off at home, leaning on the kitchen counter to stop and say hi to Dixi, and he’s telling her about the game instead of telling her to get off the counter.

“We’re good luck charms for Pittsburgh sports,” Sidney is saying, all serious like he’s not talking to a cat and maybe believes they actually bring good luck. “Dixon looked pretty good out there, and OT wins are really exciting.” 

Geno has been in Pittsburgh for barely three days, and in those three days, he has thought about kissing Sidney about a hundred times. It’s a little hard to believe that watching him talk to his cat in a Steelers windbreaker is what does it, knocks Geno so sideways in love that he has to cover the few kitchen tiles between them, turn Sidney to face him, and kiss him gently.

Sidney’s lips freeze against his, wet and still tasting of that abhorrent Coors Light. Geno’s stomach feels like it’s in his shoes, and his hands are sweating slightly where they grip Sidney’s shirt, so he lets go but doesn’t move back until Sidney makes a noise low in his throat. 

With his heart pounding, Geno steps back and looks at Sidney’s face, feeling a bolt of distinct unhappiness lance through him as he catches sight of his wide, hurt eyes. “What are you doing?” Sidney asks, and Geno reaches forward on instinct, wincing when Sidney jerks back against the counter.

“I—want to,” Geno says, swallowing hard. Sidney just keeps staring at him, lips pressed together in a frown, and Geno wants to take his hand so badly. “Want to kiss you, Sid,” Geno says. “Want for a while now.”

Sidney looks down, shaking his head. “You just broke up with Oksana. We should—we can go get the small pancakes again, we’ll talk it out, you don’t need to—”

“No,” Geno says firmly. “Don’t need small pancakes. Get back together with Oksana, break up, and I think—I think about you.”

He wills Sidney to look up at that, can just barely glimpse the tops of his cheeks going pink, and that automatically has Geno stuffing down a smile. But Sidney stays staring at the floor, his hands shoved in the pockets of the windbreaker like he knows how much Geno wants to grab them, and he shakes his head again.

“I don’t—” Sidney starts, and Geno opens his mouth to call bullshit, because this is definitely not the time for Sidney to start denying his feelings for Geno, not after all these years. But Sidney barrels on, finally looking up, staring at a spot roughly near Geno’s shoulder. “What do you want? Do you just want to kiss me?”

“Not just kiss,” Geno says, and he leers a little, but stops as soon as Sidney flinches. “I get more Steelers tickets,” Geno tells him more gently. “Want to take you. I get box seats, so we—we can hold hands, if want.”

Sidney goes pinker, and Geno keeps going, because there’s really no sight he likes better. “Take you get food, go to movie—you don’t pick, though, terrible taste—and you come over, watch Steelers if we can’t go.”

“I don’t like football that much,” Sidney says, and then he looks a little horrified with himself. “I mean—”

“Next year, Bucs make playoffs for you,” Geno promises, feeling ridiculous and amazing. “We go. I take you in spring, but we be too busy winning the Cup for baseball.”

“Next year,” Sidney says. A grin spreads over his face, slow and a little dazed, and then he shakes his head and tries to get rid of it. Geno delights in the fact that he can’t smooth out his face, even as he coughs once and looks Geno in the eye. “Can I—I need to think about it.”

“Okay,” Geno says immediately, ignoring the way his heart clenches a little. He leans forward before Sidney can move, keeps going when Sidney stays still, and kisses him again, soft and with promise. “I be here.”

“Okay,” Sidney echoes softly, searching Geno’s face. Geno steps back to let him out of the kitchen, watching him as he goes and then leaning against the counter when the front door clicks shut, his heart racing. He drops down to bury his face in Dixi’s fur, listening to her purr for a minute, before thinking idly about food. It feels weird to think about something so ordinary when it feels like his world has been turned over, and he’s elated and terrified and isn’t sure he could actually eat anything. 

He doesn’t have to come to a decision about that, though, because in the next second, Geno hears his door flung open and the thud of Sidney kicking off his shoes and then flying into the kitchen, eyes wide and face wonderfully flushed.

“I thought about it,” Sidney says, and Geno wants to ask if he’d even pulled out of Geno’s driveway, but then there’s nothing else he really needs to ask, because Sidney is grabbing at him and kissing him, harder than Geno had dared to, his grip on Geno’s arms firm and almost frantic. The kiss is dizzyingly fast and when Sidney pulls back, Geno moves with him, searching for his mouth, frowning when Sidney just puts a hand at the back of his neck and pushes at him to duck down and touch their foreheads. 

“You want me back?” Sidney asks quietly, and Geno nods, eyes nearly crossing to stay locked on Sidney’s. He watches them widen, hazel eaten up by dark, dilating pupil, specks of color in the iris he’s never seen before and wants to catalog and remember. Sidney strokes his hand at Geno’s neck, seeming to steel himself, and then he says, “Really?” 

It makes Geno want to punch every single person that’s never wanted Sidney back, for whatever insane, terrible reasons they had, and also want to shake their hands, because now—“ _Really_ ,” Geno says fiercely, and when he kisses Sidney again it’s all there, bruising and forceful in its intensity.

Dixi yowls and hops off the counter when Geno walks Sidney back into it, and neither of them stop kissing long enough to really notice. They do notice when Sidney elbows a tin canister off the counter, sending it crashing to the floor and making them jump, and Geno is loath to break apart. But now he can see Sidney’s smile, wide and giving him ridiculous apple cheeks. He can more acutely feel Sidney’s hands sliding over his waist, locking at his hips, and he can feel Sidney’s words spoken against his shoulder as Sidney leans all the way into him.

“Let’s go upstairs.”

There’s a protest on his tongue, a pressing thought to say that they can do this _right_ —he’ll take Sidney out like he promised, and kiss him more, and hold his hand. But Sidney links their hands together to start tugging him up the stairs, and of course he’d wind up beating Geno to the punch even with the sappy stuff. The protest dies a certain death anyway when they get into the bedroom and Sidney immediately starts yanking at Geno’s clothes, yanking at his own, all the while radiating happiness from every pore.

“Okay,” Sidney says, when he’s got Geno lying on top of the covers in just his underwear. He stares down at Geno like he’s a feast, and he’s smiling with eyes so bright that Geno has to yank him down for kissing, not at all regretting his choice when Sidney kisses his mouth and then his chin and then down to his chest, kissing all around before picking his head and looking at Geno very seriously.

“I just want you to know that I know what I’m doing,” Sidney says.

 

Geno wishes he could say that that night is the last time he and Sidney sleep together, but it isn’t. They take turns seeking each other out, going to bed together and then going their separate ways the way they never had before.

It’s a useless, idiotic practice, because it doesn’t fix any of the weirdness, only perpetuates it. They don’t know how to be around each other now, unless they’re having sex, which is something completely new to them. It makes Geno feel wrong, out of order and not himself, because he doesn’t think he makes sense if he can’t be around Sidney. Sidney has never just been about sex for him, and it feels strange and pretty terrible to relegate him to that now.

“We can’t do this again,” Sidney says, just before playoffs start. “Seriously, nothing during the playoffs, we can’t.”

Geno scoffs, because every time they do this, one or both of them says it’s the last time. And he agrees that continuing this at any time, but _especially_ the playoffs, would be a terrible idea.

But they drop Game One to the Flyers at home, and Sidney comes to him, hugging himself and looking a little lost. He jerks Geno off like it’s his sole mission for the rest of the week, then rubs off on his thigh and comes making panting, choked breaths against Geno’s damp skin. Geno dares to hold Sidney for a minute, wishing stupidly that he could just keep him here forever and feeling none of the anger that he always feels, should always feel, until Sidney pulls back and sniffs and says, “No more.”

He doesn’t turn Geno away, though, when Geno comes to him after losing Game Two.

By unspoken agreement, they both head to Sidney’s hotel room after Game Three, and Sidney’s hands are shaking so hard, Geno has to take the keycard away from him and let them inside. Sidney practically rips off his tie, muttering, “Fucking Giroux,” under his breath as he keeps undressing. Geno strips silently, watching Sidney fumble buttons and goosebump in the cool air, and he comes up behind Sidney when he’s down to his boxer-briefs, pressing them together back-to-front and reaching down the front of Sidney’s underwear.

He cups Sidney’s soft cock, strokes at it gently and kisses his neck, trying to draw out some of the tension that’s making him vibrate in Geno’s arms. Sidney tries to relax back into him, takes deep breaths and rocks his hips a little into Geno’s touch, but after a few minutes he makes a frustrated noise and grabs Geno’s wrist, pulling him away.

“I just—” Sidney says, and he shakes his head. “I don’t want that. Sorry.” He tries to turn in Geno’s hold, reaching between them, and Geno grabs his hands in his and squeezes.

“What you want?”

“I don’t know.” 

“Can I give anything?” _Anything else_ he thinks, but it’s a fleeting thought, one that doesn’t even stick anymore. It’s hard to top the bitterness of being down by three in a seven game series, especially when the source of that bitterness looks like he’s about to come apart in his arms.

“I don’t know,” Sidney repeats, and he looks lost again, eyes swimming. Geno wants desperately to stay with him, wants to put them both in bed and tuck himself around Sidney. He wants Sidney to tell him about hope, and about baseball in April, and to stop looking like they’ve already _lost_ , like they lost before they showed up to play.

He wants Sidney to say that he’s changed his mind, that they should be together after all, that obviously his plan to not lose hockey for Geno is failing miserably, because hockey is slipping through their fingers like sand. He thinks that Sidney wants to say that, too, just from the wrecked look on his face, but he pulls himself from Geno’s arms and heads toward the bed, looking away. 

“I’m going to sleep,” Sidney says, and he doesn’t _say_ anything, doesn’t reach out, so Geno sighs and starts gathering his clothes.

“I let you sleep.”

Sidney stares at him as he goes, eyes dark and unhappy, and Geno wishes that there were anything he could do about that.

He tries to avoid people when he goes down to breakfast the next day, would have taken it up in his room if he thought he could stand to listen to Brooksie on the phone with Erin for any length of time. Geno really doesn’t appreciate running into Pat Brisson, of all people, in the breakfast line, and he wonders if he’s here to stop his two star clients from murdering each other. 

Brisson acknowledges him with a smile and a nod, which is fine by Geno, but then he comes over to sit with him at the table Geno had selected because it was surrounded by empty ones. The only other players in the room are Jordy, falling asleep into oatmeal and snapping awake like Gary Roberts might be standing over his shoulder, and Duper laughing at him between talking on his cell phone to his wife. It’s pretty early, because somehow Geno hadn’t gotten much sleep last night.

Geno gives him a nod and concentrates on his eggs. Only the perpetual sound of his mother squawking at him in his head makes him stay eating, because not enough sleep and not enough food isn’t going to be conducive to a good next few days, especially in conjunction with everything else.

Brisson stirs his coffee idly and, before Geno can muster up the nerve to spit out _why are you sitting with me?_ says, “I’m taking Sid out for lunch. We’ll have to duck thrown batteries, but it seems like he has some things he wants to get off his chest.”

He thinks of last night’s vicious media scrum and chuckles a bit, hollow and croaked. “Think he get most out already.” He watches Brisson’s mouth tighten behind his coffee mug and feels stupidly, viciously proud of Sidney for a second, but only for a second; he really hadn’t done himself any favors last night, and logically, Geno knows that.

“Yeah, we’re going to have to talk about that, too.” Brisson screws up a smile again, eyes going as soft as Geno thinks they can ever get. “How are you doing?”

Geno shrugs, poking at his bacon. “We have Game Four. We win, take it back home, win again. Keep winning. Only thing can do.”

“I don’t doubt that, but that’s not what I was talking about.” Geno drops his fork with a clang, staring at Brisson and prickling at his heavy tone. There’s no way he can _know_ , Geno is sure about that, the team doesn’t know and Mario doesn’t know and there’s no way Sidney would—but Brisson just looks back at Geno, completely nonplussed, waiting for him to come to the correct conclusion that yes, he does know, and somehow he thinks it’s completely okay to _ask_ Geno about it like a concerned mentor.

“Not good to talk about here,” Geno says, mind racing and mentally adding _not with you_. Brisson nods, like that’s fair, and reaches across the table to pat at Geno’s arm.

“I guess I just wanted to thank you for being a good sport about it. I know it must have been tough—Sidney certainly made his displeasure clear when we first talked about it, but he eventually came around, so I’m glad—”

“Came around?” Geno asks, not liking what he understands of that, and refusing to accept it at face value. Brisson just blinks at him and nods again, slow in a way that makes Geno want to punch him.

That’s probably the least of all the reasons he wants to punch Brisson, though, and those reasons become clear when Brisson says, “Sidney eventually agreed with me that it would be a good idea to—end things, with you, considering what a liability—”

“Have to go,” Geno says, standing up so fast his chair overturns behind him. Brisson looks up at him, alarmed, and Jordy and Duper look over, too, but Geno ignores them all to head back to the lobby, punching at the elevator buttons and glaring at them for the duration of the time it takes the doors to chime open.

Sidney’s dressed when Geno pounds on his door until he opens it, hair damp and curling slightly over his collar. He frowns at Geno and lets him barrel in, watches him pace around the room a little bit with his mind racing at the speed of light, a hundred different thoughts and possibilities slamming through his head. “Geno?”

“I don’t accept,” Geno bursts out, turning to face Sidney and holding back a growl at his confusion. “Breakup, I don’t accept breakup.”

“What? Geno, it’s been months, what are you—”

“Can’t break up because _agent_ tells you to,” Geno says viciously, and he watches Sidney go paper white, his eyes wide. “Only two people in relationship, not three, so only two people can break up. So I say no, not accept. Breakup cancelled.”

“You can’t just—”

“No, _you_ can’t!” Geno yells. Sidney flinches and goes quiet, glaring down at the floor, and Geno surges forward and pulls his face up by his chin, forcing eye contact. “Brisson scare you, make you feel ashamed—”

“I agreed with him, okay, it wasn’t all—it’s not his fault. And I’m not ashamed!” Sidney looks like this is the absolute last conversation he wants to be involved in, and for once, Geno couldn’t care less. 

“Not mean you can just decide for us,” Geno continues. “I am in this too. I decide too, Sid. And I decide _fuck_ Brisson, we are good together, better together.”

“No,” Sidney says hoarsely, backing out of Geno’s space, holding his hands up to keep Geno from following. “No, we can’t. He was right, okay? Our relationship is a liability, it’s too complicated and way too risky—”

“A liability. Like your head?”

“Yeah,” Sidney says, flinching so hard Geno immediately wants to take the words back. “Yeah, like my head, but the difference is it’s a liability for _you_ , too. And that’s—I can’t have that on me, Geno.”

“Is my choice. I choose—”

“They could take hockey away from us!” Sidney shouts. The words are barbed and painful, and Geno wants to hide himself from them, but they’re there, out in the air between them. They’re all over Sidney’s face, in the press of his lips and his hands shaking again at his sides. “And I told you,” he says, voice quiet again, and that’s definitely worse than shouting. “I can’t lose hockey again.”

“Can talk to office, tell Mario,” Geno says quickly, because he doesn’t think—they’d kept this hidden to keep it simple, to keep it theirs in case something went bad, but he never truly believed things could go bad because people knew. He doesn’t think that there’s a force on this planet that could threaten Sidney’s position as a Penguin, and he’s pretty sure that’s true for him as well, and he really doesn’t understand why Brisson and Sidney think differently. 

“Can’t risk it,” Sidney says, still quiet. And then his face changes. It’s like that blank slate he’s been trying for all along, the one that’s never worked with Geno. The one that had failed him last night with the media, for the first time in a very long time. 

Geno feels chilled looking at Sidney like that, being stared at like he’s a stranger. “It’s my choice too. And I choose hockey. That’s me, that’s my choice, not Brisson. That’s _me_.”

“Sid—” Geno starts, but he stops when Sidney’s face doesn’t change at all.

Once again, it’s clear that this is Sidney’s show, and Geno just feels helpless and useless. Even faced with that blank mask, Geno knows now how badly this has been hurting them both, and Sidney’s never been able to hide that before, even if he’s hiding it now. Knowing that, it’s hard to do anything but admit defeat, fold again like he has so many times before, and nod slowly. 

“Okay, Sid.”

“And we shouldn’t do—do anything anymore,” Sidney says, voice wobbling a little but face maintaining its careful control. “It just makes it worse.”

“Yeah,” Geno says, and that should be it, really. It’ll hurt less if that’s it, if it’s officially over, a wound they’ve finally let scab. But one last thing pricks at him, forced past his lips before he can really control it. “You—why you tell Brisson?”

It only takes a second for those words to break Sidney’s composure, his face suddenly wide open with a rush of feelings that leaves Geno reeling. “It doesn’t matter now,” Sidney tells him, but Geno can’t help but think that it does. It really, really does, and he opens his mouth to say so, but Sidney shakes his head frantically. “No, just—I don’t want to think about it, or talk about it. You should just go.”

“I go,” Geno says, but he thinks _he wanted to start telling people_ and he’s too busy thinking of the many ways he could kill Pat Brisson and make it look like an accident to actually start moving, until Sidney says, “Please go.”

Geno goes. At the door, he stops because he’s thinking about telling people again: the team giving them shit, Dan having an awkward talk with them about on-ice dynamics, coming to Sunday dinner at the Lemieuxs’ and explaining his intentions to Mario. He thinks about how Sidney _wanted_ to tell people, that he’d taken the first step, and he knows that they were both wrong; having it be over isn’t going to make this hurt any less. He doesn’t think anything could make this hurt less. 

“You make me happy, Sid,” he says, looking at Sidney and watching him take a deep, shuddering breath in response. “I wish—”

“Me too,” Sidney blurts out, and he looks so ridiculously unhappy with himself that Geno can’t look at him anymore. 

 

When Sidney starts turning all the lights on again, Geno takes him skating.

“I’m not cleared,” Sidney says, though his protests are rendered completely moot by the fact that he’d thrown himself in the car and buckled his seatbelt before the words were even all the way out of Geno’s mouth. “And slow down.”

“Not cleared for _contact_ ,” Geno says, and he reaches across the console to grab Sidney’s hand. “Cleared for Geno.”

“Ha ha,” Sidney says, but he squeezes Geno’s hand before pushing it back toward the steering wheel. “So we’re just going to skate?”

“Chocolate, too,” and that makes Sidney’s cheeks go pink. Geno wonders if he can get away with a fist pump without Sidney bitching at him to concentrate on driving. “Nothing fast, no playing, just—skate. Will be fun.”

“Okay.” Sidney sounds dubious, but his knee is bouncing slightly in his seat. Geno wants to squeeze it, wants to pull over and taste the excitement on Sidney’s lips, but he keeps his eyes on the road and keeps driving.

He’d rented ice time just so he could hold Sidney’s hand, but it’s really Sidney’s blush and chastising “ _Geno_ ,” that makes it totally worth it. They skate lazy laps around the empty rink, and Geno never asks Sidney if he’s okay, if he’s dizzy or nauseous, because he’s watching him instead. He thinks Sidney notices, thinks Sidney’s watching himself just as carefully, but it’s okay, really. 

Sidney’s fine; his eyes are brighter than they’ve been since he was put back on IR, and that had been pretty much all Geno had been going for. There are moments when Geno is sure that Sidney is aching to go tearing up and down the ice, but every time that look passes over his face he just touches Geno’s hand and smiles at him a little.

“You make me so happy,” Sidney tells Geno when they get their hot chocolate. Geno’s heart swells, and he knows he’s beaming like an idiot, but he can’t actually care. 

“Good,” he says, looking around before risking dropping a kiss on Sidney’s forehead. “You make me happy, too.”

“Good,” Sidney says, and his voice is a little hoarse. They finish their hot chocolate and, when Sidney leads the way to the car, Geno allows himself a single fist pump, scrambling to catch up when Sidney laughs loudly at him and tells him he’s a dork. 

Five days later, Sidney comes over and tells Geno that they need to talk. Geno is certain that this is going to be an argument about what kind of cupcakes they’re going to make to bring to Bryan Bylsma’s birthday party, so he’s pretty blindsided when Sidney says, “I think we—we need to stop seeing each other.”

Geno is sure that he’s misunderstanding, at first.


	2. Epilogue

The very last call that Geno expects to get is the one where Sidney tells him he’s in Moscow, and not to tell anybody. Geno blinks, pulls his phone away to stare at it, and then puts it back to his ear.

“Sorry?”

“I’m getting a connecting flight,” Sidney says impatiently. “Um, soon, I think.”

“Connecting flight to…where?”

“Magnitogorsk,” Sidney snaps, ruining his tone by mangling the pronunciation like he always does. “Oh shut up. Just, be ready to pick me up at the airport?”

He sounds nervous, like Geno’s the kind of guy that’s going to strand his teammate in the middle of an airport in a foreign country, in _Geno’s_ country. Geno runs his hand tiredly over his face and says, “I be ready.”

“Thanks, Geno.” The relief in Sidney’s voice makes Geno feel like an asshole, even though he hasn’t done anything, hasn’t even seen Sidney in almost nine months. He wants to bring that up, wants to question Sidney until anything about this phone call starts making sense, but then Sidney’s blurting out, “Okay, I have to go, I think that means we’re boarding? I have to go ask someone. See you soon!” He throws out flight information and hangs up, leaving Geno to stare at his phone again, pinching himself to be sure that really happened.

“You look like someone just hit you over the head,” Sergei tells him when Geno drifts into the living room still staring at his phone.

“Basically, yes,” Geno says, and then he says, “Sidney is on his way.”

Sergei starts laughing, and he doesn’t even stop when Geno throws his phone at him, because he is a terrible friend.

 _What do I do_ he texts Oksana after explaining, and Oksana’s advice is equally useless: _protect him from your mother._ Geno doesn’t need to be told that; he’s really not a moron, most of the time.

The flight from Moscow to Magnitogorsk is just over two hours, which gives Geno time to do some research. His agent and the Metallurg front office have no idea what Sidney is doing in Russia, though his agent admits to more talks with Brisson (a name that still makes violent urges roll around his head) before he repeats “Nothing final, and you know about the difficulties in—”

Geno hangs up on him, not wanting to hear about Sidney’s insurance issues again. Those are the least of the issues that would arise from Sidney playing here; now those issues are sitting like stones in the pit of his stomach.

Sidney’s demand that Geno not tell anyone he’s in Russia turns out to be pretty pointless; there had been a Twitter sighting at the airport, and as North America wakes up, the news is spreading rapidly. The worst of it is getting a call from an American number he doesn’t recognize and hanging up as soon as he hears, “Geno, this is Pat Brisson—” because it’s apparently the day to hang up on agents.

So he’s equipped with very little information when he drives to the airport, but that stops mattering the second he sees Sidney walking out of baggage claim, bundled up and looking very tired. He seems to freeze up a little when he sees Geno, and Geno has no idea what to do or say here, so he gives a little wave and feels like solid gold when Sidney cracks a small smile. 

“Hi,” he says, stopping in front of Geno and gripping his duffel tight over his shoulder. He has one small suitcase at his side, the handle clutched in his hand, and Geno is surprised when that suitcase knocks into his leg because Sidney is giving him a hug.

“Hi, Sid,” Geno says, gripping Sidney tight. 

He can feel Sidney breathing deeply under all the layers of their winter clothes, his head dropped down in the crook of Geno’s neck, and it’s a long time before either of them let go.

In the car, Sidney is mostly quiet except to comment on Geno’s driving: “You can drive fast here, eh?”

“Can drive fast in Pittsburgh, too, but you don’t let me,” Geno says, and Sidney cracks another small smile but looks out the window.

Geno has a lot of questions, but he doesn’t have it in him to be a jerk, really, not with Sidney, so he just takes Sidney back to his house, making sure it’s clear of Gonchar and Malkin family members besides Jeffrey, who greets Sidney like it’s been nine years instead of nine months. Sidney hugs him, too, not even cringing when he licks all over his face, and Geno feels it like a punch in the gut when he looks around and lets his face fall when he remembers about Dixi.

“Sorry,” Geno says, feeling awkward, and Sidney just smiles grimly up at him, rubbing all over Jeffrey’s back. 

He heats Sidney something to eat, makes himself watch Sidney pick at it sitting at the kitchen table for a few moments, before deciding he’s been hospitable enough; he gets to ask for some kind of explanation now. Sidney must sense something coming, because he looks up and he looks _terrified_ , enough that Geno’s words die in his throat and his tongue turns to lead. This leaves him quiet and frozen for Sidney’s next, unthinkable words.

“Breakup cancelled.”

“ _What_?” Geno yelps, and from his position sprawled across their feet, Jeffrey jerks awake and whines at them. 

“No,” Sidney says, squeezing his eyes shut and coloring. “No, I shouldn’t have said that, that wasn’t what I meant to say.”

“What are you— _Sid_.”

“I talked to Mario,” Sidney tells him hurriedly, still with his eyes closed. “We—it was a good talk. I should’ve—if I’d gone to him first, I don’t know what—”

“You _tell_ Mario?” Geno asks incredulously. Once again, he feels like he’s missing something, and Sidney has _got_ to stop blindsiding him like this. It had been a summer and autumn full of texts about nothing, then about hockey, then about maybe playing together, and then nothing again. It had been good, really, because it was normal, or at least some semblance of normal. Geno wouldn’t recommend nine months of not seeing someone as a cure-all for breakup woes, not like small pancakes and baseball, but it had definitely helped.

“Yes,” Sidney says, opening his eyes to level Geno with a stubborn set to his face. “I wanted to start telling people, you know, when I first talked to Brisson—”

“I know, Sid,” Geno says tiredly, because that knowledge had done exactly nothing to help any of this. It’s possible that it had made it worse. 

“And I still wanted to, even after we broke up,” Sidney continues, shaking his head like he’s frustrated with himself. “I wanted people to know that we’d—you were the most important relationship of my life, the most important part of my life for a while, and nobody even knew. It felt wrong.”

“So you tell Mario.”

“No.” Sidney’s eyes lock with Geno’s for this. “I told Mario because I wanted him to prove Brisson wrong.”

Geno’s breath leaves him in a swoop, and for a second it doesn’t really return. He can only stare at Sidney, feeling slightly dizzy, barely daring to speak again. “And he—did?”

“He did,” Sidney says, and now it’s Geno’s turn to close his eyes. Sidney is off and running again, words coming fast, almost too fast for Geno, but he hangs on to each one because he knows how important they have to be, for Sidney to come all this way. “It wasn’t just Mario, though. I just—you know I missed you. I thought it would go away, but it didn’t, I still miss you and you’re sitting right across from me. And I’m not sorry that I did what I did because I thought it was right at the time, for both of us, but you—I hurt you really badly, and I’m sorry about that.”

“I’m sorry too,” Geno says automatically, and when he opens his eyes, Sidney’s glaring at him.

“ _No._ Don’t be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Could’ve fought more. Could’ve asked why. Find out from _Brisson_ and still give up.”

Sidney shakes his head furiously. “No, it was me. I was—” He huffs out a shaky laugh, looking down at his barely-touched food. “When Brisson made it sound like it was you or hockey, it felt like—it was the weirdest thing. I thought about you, and how happy you made me, and hockey—for the first time in my life, losing hockey didn’t feel like the worst thing that could ever happen to me.” Sidney laughs again, choked and a little desperate, and Geno can totally understand that, because he feels like he’s just been punched in the gut. “That scared the _shit_ out of me.”

“I love you too,” Geno says without thinking, and it’s worth it for how incredibly shocked Sidney looks, like Geno had just given him Earth-shattering news.

“I’m sorry,” Sidney says again, grimacing a little. “You were never supposed to love me back, you know?”

“Sorry again,” and Sidney snorts.

“Stop _saying_ that.”

They fall quiet, the kitchen filled with nothing but Jeffrey’s whuffling breaths. Sidney is back to staring down at his food and Geno watches the top of his head; he has absolutely no idea what to say, but knows he has to say _something_. 

“What now, Sid?”

“I don’t know,” Sidney says, staring at his hands.

Geno bites down on a frustrated sigh, thinking. He’s not letting himself feel hopeful yet, ignoring the ridiculous, elated shock that had come from hearing the words “breakup cancelled” come out of Sidney’s mouth, because there’s so much more he has to think about and say.

“No hockey now, so you—”

“It’s not because of that,” Sidney tells him, frowning hard. “It’s _not_ , I just told you, it’s not really a choice between you or hockey. It doesn’t have to be if we don’t make it one.”

He’s back to tamping down on hope, because it’s not April, and this isn’t baseball—their record is pretty shitty right now, and a new season seems almost unimaginable. 

“You here to play?” Geno asks, unsure of what he wants the answer to be until Sidney shakes his head.

“I’m here for you.” 

“Can you play?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I really don’t know.” Sidney rolls his eyes. “That’s a discussion I should really be having with my agent, but, um, you can probably imagine how awkward that is—”

“I talk to him,” Geno says fiercely, relishing the thought, and Sidney smiles, small and sharp.

“It’s okay, Geno. I’ll work it out. For now, I guess—I’m here.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m here, and if you want it to be, then—breakup cancelled. But you have to decide, okay? I don’t want you to feel like you have to, I don’t know, forgive me just to make me happy.”

“Like to make you happy,” Geno tells Sidney, and he watches Sidney’s face soften.

“I know. But I like to make you happy, too, and I haven’t been doing a very good job at that lately. I’d like another chance, but only if you want to give me one.”

Geno still doesn’t really know what to say. It’s always so much easier to just respond to Sidney, to watch for his cues and follow his lead. He thinks the bravest thing he’d ever done in this relationship had been to start it, to take that first step in kissing Sidney, but of course Sidney had been first in wanting him. 

He wants to be brave again, wants to say that nine months have been enough, and telling Mario was enough, and Sidney loving him so much that it scares him more than anything could be enough. It almost feels like enough, along with the hope thrumming under his skin and beating in time with his heart. 

But it might not be enough. When Geno puts together all the pieces of what they’ve been through, all they’ve done to and for each other, he doesn’t know if he has enough left of himself to risk it with another chance. They can’t start with a clean slate, it’s impossible, and Geno doesn’t know if they can survive with a record like theirs always hanging over their heads.

“I have to think,” Geno says carefully, and it hurts to see Sidney’s face fall. He recovers quickly enough, nodding rapidly and shifting uneasily in his seat. 

“Okay. I understand. I can—I can get a hotel, give you some space, or if you want me to go back home, I can—”

“No,” Geno says, reaching out and grabbing at Sidney’s fluttering hand. “No, stay here. Whole ocean too much space. I—I go for a drive? Sleep, maybe, and think, and—”

“Yeah,” Sidney says, smiling a little. “Yeah, that sounds good, Geno.”

“I know sounds good, I think of it,” Geno says, just to see Sidney laugh too loudly. “You stay with Jeffrey. I come back.”

“I’ll be here,” Sidney says, and it’s a promise that warms him from the inside out.

It keeps him warm enough through his entire drive, trying to think a hundred thoughts at once and fitting them together in a way that makes any kind of sense. It’s hard, it’s always been hard for him to do that with Sidney, because there are probably always things Geno’s going to miss or misunderstand. 

But Sidney is here, here for Geno and not for hockey, and not because there’s no hockey but because, apparently, there’s been no Geno. And that’s what Geno keeps coming back to: Sidney is here, and he has no idea what’s going to happen next but he’s here anyway. Geno can think of a hundred different things, but nothing really seems to matter more than that. 

The easy part, then, is deciding to turn the car around, to drive back to where Sidney is waiting. It’s his turn to be brave again, and Geno is not going to let this chance slip away, not for anything.


End file.
